Confessions of a Literary Addict

How has it been nine months since I’ve done one of these? Where did the time go?! Jfc…

Well! Time to do one again! I’m in a rare mood of motivation, so I’m going to try to take advantage of it now and knock one of these bad boys out. (And the draft another, because I’ve done a lot since the last time I’ve made one of these.)

Let’s go!

The Vampire Diaries (Season One)

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So, I’m finally taking the deep (deep… deep…) dive down TVD TV show after mostly making my way through the original books by L.J. Smith (there’s one left I have to finish, I think, before I get to the ghost written ones, but my GOD is it a chore…). Right away, I’m pretty sore they left Meredith out of the narrative, since I really enjoyed her role in the books. Aside from that, I’m not even a little salty about most of the other changes.

I gotta say, I’m really enjoying the show? I wasn’t expecting to seeing as how I loathe book!Elena, show!Elena is actually really cool. I like show!Stefan and show!Bonnie more than their book counterparts, too. I especially love show!Caroline, I’m really glad they changed her character up from what it was in the books. I also love Jenna, a lot. I’m terrified of what her fate may be by the time this show is over with, because I learned very fast not to get too attached to many characters, because they like to twist the ones that aren’t our main three.

I’m also kind of upset that there’s basically no sign of the relationship between Stefan and Matt from the books? I thought their friendship was really sweet, and it’s been ignored at least for this first season. (Still totally shipping Damon and Bonnie tho, even if it seems like they’re also nixing that little side relationship. I can keep my hopes up!)

I’m only one season down, though, and there are… eight? seasons? Something like that. Plenty of room for me to keep my hopes far too high.

Final note: this was filmed and aired in the 2009-2010 era, and good GOD was I brutally thrown back to my high school years while watching this. Was not prepared for that.

It: Chapter One

I was actually really excited to watch this. I’m not usually really one for horror movies, but I’m a total sucker for anything set in a year before 2000, especially the 80s. (Blame Stranger Things for that one.)

I was surprised, though. For me, it actually wasn’t all that scary? I’m a pretty big baby as far as I’m aware, and aside from the jumpscares, nothing about it particularly got to me? I don’t have a fear of clowns, however, so that likely had something to do with it. I thought the humor was great:

The kids were accurately kids:

And, my god, WHERE WERE THEIR PARENTS. WHAT IS IT WITH 80S PARENTS AND NOT WATCHING THEIR KIDS?

HELLO?

Ahem.

All in all, really liked it!

Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town

Hear that? That’s the sound of me badly mimicking singing angels as I slowly lower the game case into a frame that doesn’t actually exist. Because I’m not a fan of showing my face. Just use your imagination if you don’t know what I look like.

This? This is a remake of my favorite game of all time (Harvest Moon: [More] Friends of Mineral Town). It had a lot to live up to. Aaaaand it… mostly did. Mostly.

Okay. In all fairness, there was basically no possible way it could have lived up to the original game. There’s just something about the old school nostalgia of the old one that’s pretty much untouchable, so it wouldn’t be fair of me to say it didn’t live up to the original when it couldn’t actually do that in the first place.

However.

I hate the game design of this one.

There. I said it. I hate it. I love the art portraits! Even though they changed some of my favorite designs, I actually love ALL of them! A lot! The whole chibi-3D-whatever angle for the actual gameplay, though? No. Nope. Not a fan.

But… everything else was basically all I could have asked for, so I’m pretty much letting that slide. I mean, they kept so much of the original dialogue and interactions that I literally was rolling in excitement every step of the way because I forgot nothing (and I blame that on the fact I’ve replayed both original games enough times to marry every single bachelor and bachelorette, along with Cliff at least five extra times). They kept so much the same! And they cleaned up all the mistakes they made in the first one and couldn’t fix because internet game fix updates weren’t a thing!

I am genuinely in love with this game. I play it more than I’d like to admit to, especially when I’m feeling down (and, boy howdy, that’s a lot lately thanks to the whole Corona business), and if you’ve never played a Harvest Moon (old school one, not the new one) or Story of Seasons (AKA old school Harvest Moon… it’s a long story), I do recommend this one if you like farming sims. Stardew Valley was inspired by Harvest Moon: Back to Nature, and Friends of Mineral Town was essentially the reboot of that game for the GBA at the time.

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Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go play some more, and maybe knock out another season of TVD. See you next time!

Thanks for reading!